Partial transcript of press briefing remarks by Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.) on the government shutdown and debt ceiling on Oct. 8, 2013:

…As I’ve said before, there are two obligations of Congress. One is to pass a budget; the other is to pay our bills. We have failed to do the first and my Republican colleagues are about to fail to do the latter as well.

The last time we were in this predicament two years ago, it was as if my Republican colleagues were playing with matches. Now, they’re playing with a blowtorch. They know exactly what they’re doing and they have a purpose.

In fact, one my colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle has said that failure to raise the debt ceiling would in essence balance the world’s markets – and I’m paraphrasing there. It’s absolutely absurd what they believe is in the best interest of our country right now.

What’s in the best interest of our country is to put American’s government back to work – get the government up and running again – and not playing with a blowtorch on the issue of our national debt. We saw what it did to our economy the last time – the downgrade in our credit rating, how it hurt our economy. We simply cannot even allow this discussion to go further.

We need to pass a clean CR and get the government up and running again and pass a clean debt ceiling relief bill, and stop taking this uncertainty out on the lives of the American people and, quite frankly, the world. There’s enough uncertainty in the world. We have to stop creating these man-made fiscal cliffs – these man-made disasters. There’s enough going on as it is.

Let’s get on with doing the business of our country. There are so many other issues that we need to be concentrating on that we’re neglecting because, again, of these man-made fiscal disasters.